


A Twice Broken Man

by wkemeup



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Dissociative Episode, F/M, Hand Jobs, Hydra, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Mutilation, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sex, Shower Sex, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Trauma Recovery, bucky asks you to take his life if necessary, canon level violence, carved names into skin, making loooooove, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:27:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22977646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wkemeup/pseuds/wkemeup
Summary: Knowing what will happen if Hydra ever captures him again, Bucky asks the impossible of you. He asks for you to end his life. The consequences that follow are not easy to recover.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 13
Kudos: 128





	A Twice Broken Man

There’s a hand on your forearm, a slight squeeze, and it takes you a minute to register that it is _Bucky’s_ hand,that it is _his_ thumb brushing in sweeps over the goosebumps on your skin. It’s cold, calloused, still as gentle as he’s ever been, but there’s a nervousness there, a hesitancy, and it runs like ice in your veins.

Time stands still for an impossible minute and you realize you’re taking too long to respond. Ocean blue eyes search yours with a cautious concern and you’re certain you’ve never heard anything worse than the request Bucky has just asked of you. Your stomach wretches as the words echoes in the back of your mind, threatening to tear you to pieces.

He parts his lips, hand trailing in gentle sweeping motions down your arm, and he asks again. 

“Sweetheart please. I can’t go back to them. If it ever comes to it, I need you to do this for me.”

You close your eyes. Tears sting over the bridge of your nose. He should have waited for another time to ask this. Not when you’re both laying between sheets, bare and flustered, hearts still racing, the feel of him lingering between your legs.

It’s an impossible question but he’s asking it anyway.

He’s asking for you to end his life.

You know his history with Hydra, spent enough nights curled up against him under the thin layer of cotton sheets and against the damp sweat of his chest to see the damage they’ve caused him, heard the screams from his lips and seen the tears in his eyes. 

Decades of pain, of suffering and humiliation, of agony and loss. 

They broke and mutilated him. They ripped him from the inside out.

Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised, shouldn’t feel this kind of twist at your heart because maybe, on some level, you understand. If you had gone through what he had, maybe you’d be asking him of the same thing.

“Bucky, I… I can’t…” you say, voice so soft you wonder for a moment if he’s even heard you. There’s a disappointment in his eyes, a sadness etched into every feature on his face, and you know that he had.

You curl your arms tighter under the pillow, tucking the side of your face against the cushion to brush away the tears he’s already seen. There’s more than just shock and desolation plunging through your chest like the sharp edge of a blade; there’s anger, too, and you grit your teeth to keep it from spilling out.

Bucky brushes the cool metal of his fingers along your cheek, wiping away the lingering evidence of your tears and the refusal dies on your tongue. It’s in the way he touches you, watches you, like he cherishes every moment. 

He does.

The anger fades and you’re left with heartbreak.

“Only if Hydra ever gets a hold of me again,” he reminds you.

He says it like it’s a far distant possibility, like his request is only precautionary, like it might not ever come to that. But you know he thinks about it more often that he admits. It’s the frequent theme of the terrors that come for him in the dead of night.

“You can’t ask that of me,” you whisper. You can barely meet his eye. Not with how desperately he’s watching you.

“Steve would never understand. He wouldn’t be able to do it.”

A sharp sting punctures through your chest.

 _“_ And you think _I could?”_ You’re colder than you intend, harsher too, and the heartbreak of it reads on his face.

Bucky sighs, leaning in to press his lips to your wrist. Warm, pillowy soft. He’s patient with you, kind, even in his darkest moments and somehow that makes it hurt more.

“ _I think_ you know me better than anyone, sweetheart,” Bucky says sadly. He smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and he starts to play with the ends of your hair, twirling it around his fingers, sweeping it behind your ear, almost lost in the feel of you. Fingertips trail over the bare skin of your back, gentle patterns before he continues. “You’ve seen the worst of my recovery. I can’t– _I won’t_ survive it again, Y/n. If it goes south tomorrow and the team can’t get me out in time, you’re the best marksman we have.”

You shake your head, lower lip quivering as the tears well in your eyes. He leans forward and presses a kiss to your forehead. It’s gone too soon.

“I can’t go back to them,” he says again because he’s already decided.

The muscle aches in your jaw before you realize how tight you’ve clenched it.

“It would be saving me,” he urges, almost begging and it breaks your heart. The warmth of his breath is hot against your shoulder the closer he pulls himself against you. The cool metal of his left arm rests around the small of your back, his lips kiss at your shoulder blade.

“Baby, please.”

Tomorrow would be his first mission against Hydra operatives since his pardon and joining the Avengers nearly a year ago. Steve was careful to keep him away from anything that could possibly trigger him, regardless of the words that had been erased from his subconscious, because even he knew that there was more that could trigger Bucky than just a series of Russian words. It wasn’t just the Winter Soldier he was worried about.

But Bucky was ready, he told you, and you really want to believe him.

Finally, you nod, because you never knew how to say no to Bucky. You never really wanted to until this moment. How could you deny a man you loved with every part of yourself? He held your heart in the palm of his hand, your secrets, your intimacy, your soul. It was all his.

The relief melts through his muscles and you feel the curve of his lips against you. He pulls himself closer, murmurs how much he loves you under his breath before he drifts off to sleep.

You don’t sleep much of all.

***

Bucky’s request goes unanswered for nearly two years.

He never tells Steve about what he asked of you. The two of you never speak of it again and still, it lingers.

It’s always on your mind. It’s the first thought to rush to the surface when Hydra’s name is evoked in the debriefing room and you have to control the race of your heartbeat before Natasha’s perceptive eyes pick up on it.

You wonder each time as you strap your weapons to your suit and load onto the quinjet if this was the day you’d destroy the other half of your heart.

It’s agony, but you hold it inside.

You deal with the pain of it by sitting closer to him in the hanger, hip to hip, until your thigh sits at the length of his. You lean against his shoulder, wrapping your arms around his to tug him as close as you can manage and he’ll press a kiss to the crown of your head, letting it brush over your hair. You hold his hand as long as you’re able before you step foot off the landing pad and you’re thrown into the chaos of enemy fire.

You savor every moment.

But it’s the nights before that hurt the most.

It’s when he’s inside you and the headboard clicks softly against the wall with every roll of his hips. It’s when he kisses at your pulse points, wetness of his tongue and the heat of his breath against the chill on your skin. It’s when your walls clench and a breathless moan escapes him, his eyes fluttering closed, hand gripping tight to the bedpost.

There’s a twist in your heart evert time he shudders above you, when he whispers through bated breaths that he adores you, that your tightness is like heaven to him, and his fingers circle at nerve endings between your legs that sent a rush of heat through you.

Pieces of you shatter even as you find your high and he releases inside you with rushed and uneven thrusts, even as he drops his body weight onto you and you worship the pressure, the heaviness of him sinking you into the mattress.

It hurts even with skin glistening, a damp layer of sweat on the line of his hair, as he smiles at you like you were made of sun and stars and galaxy. 

He likes to rest in you for some time after you’ve both finished, just studying you, tracing his fingers over your jawline, a simple kiss to your cheek, before he’ll slide out to disappear to the bathroom to wash his release from between your legs.

You never feel as empty as you do when he pulls away.

He loves you. You know that.

But he breaks your heart.

And so you hide the tears from him before he returns, wondering if you just had your last night with him, wondering if you’ll ever feel the pulse of him inside you again, or if tomorrow would be the day he’ll ask the impossible of you.

***

It happens on a Thursday and you’re entirely unprepared for it.

What was supposed to be a straightforward data hack of an unmanned Hydra base in Warsaw quickly turned into a full-scale combat zone in a matter of seconds. Hydra agents flood through the halls like they’re peeling out from behind the wallpaper, coming in from all angles. You’re overwhelmed before you can call for reinforcements.

Steve is on your left, Natasha on your right; each fighting off three agents on their own, collecting nicks in their suits, scrapes to their exposed skin, and bruises underneath. Energy draining fast with another round of combatants ahead of you, you search for Bucky over the shoulder of the man charging at you with a knife in hand.

You side step him easily, elbowing him hard enough in the middle of his back to pull a pained grunt out of him. Eyes dart across the floor, seeking out long brown hair and the shine of silver reflecting under florescent lights.

You’re distracted.

Sharp pain burns in your thigh and you looked down to find a knife embedded in your leg, the sinister grin of the man at your feet below. Red oozes from the wound and stains the black of your suit, but you don’t feel much of it. Adrenaline is too high for that now.

You let out a guttural shout, yanking the knife from your muscle and plunge it down into the man’s neck. The blood that bubbles in his mouth doesn’t faze you, nor does the quick spread of red in a pool at your feet.

You leave footprints behind in the mess as you sprint out in search of Bucky.

It’s hard to breath without him. It feels like punctured holes in your lungs and anvils on your chest. Your hands are sweating, heart pounding, and you don’t think before you shoot the three men advancing on you from behind. They stumble to the ground in a heap and it does nothing to ease your panic.

“Bucky!” you shout over the gunfire, but there’s a part of you that knows he won’t hear you.

You rush into the adjoining hall where he was supposed to be stationed with Steve but got separated once the sirens began to scream and red flashing lights flickered through the hallway. Hydra agents must have jump between them, forcing Bucky to retreat while Steve was pushed in your direction.

There was no answer on the coms when you call for him.

The handle of your gun is burning hot in your hand. It stings against your palm and you’re certain it will blister, but when you release your grip long enough to check, your hand is clear, save for the red splatter stained on your skin. 

You try not to think of the fate of this gun as you sprint through the double doors at the end of the hall where the light outside is blinding.

With a hand shielding your eyes from the sun, you spot the Hydra agents’ aim their weapons and you dive behind a barricade of supplies. Bullets embed themselves into the wall behind you, denting the frame.

Cocking the hammer of your gun and releasing a bullet casing, you suck in a deep breath. It takes a moment before air fills your lungs, but when you step out to fire, you freeze in your tracks.

Two men carry Bucky limply towards a cargo truck, each holding onto an arm as his feet drag along the dirt behind him. Blood coats down over his mouth, spilling in violent sweeps from his nose and his eyes are falling heavy, head bobbing. He doesn’t notice you and you’ve never seen him like this before; mangled and heavy, like a rag doll.

“Bucky!” you scream, voice cracking in the effort and you fire three shots at the Hydra agents around him. Only one falls to the ground and another quickly takes his place, the others protected by a shield of technology your bullets would not pierce.

Your cry seems to get through to him because Bucky’s head jolts up, blood coughing away from his lips and he looks up with wide, fearful eyes, to realize where he’s at, who’s hands are on him. You can see the panic from nearly fifty feet away.

He fights back but it’s not with his usual smooth, calculated movements, where every hit has a purpose and each step is intentional. No, this time it’s feral, unnerved. The scream that leaves him is broken and laced with a fear you’ve only heard in the dead of night.

You try to step forward, but a reign of bullets fire in your direction and you throw yourself behind the barrier. From the ground, you spot a single opening between the cases shielding you from Hydra’s fire and you toss your handgun to the side. You yank the rifle from the latch on your back, adjusting your position to get a better shot through the crates.

Through the scope, you can see more clearly and you’re not sure if this is worse.

Bucky sees you, eyes locking on your position and there’s only a second of relief before a taser is plunged into his side and his whole body starts to convulse. Your hands shake as his eyes roll back and his body falls slack. You lose sight of ocean blue and you can’t breathe.

You fire four rounds at the men around him and one by one they drop, heads snapping back in the impact. The victory is short lived before four more dart out from the shadows to replace them. You shoot again. More come.

“Steve, I–” your voice trembles into the com, “They’ve– they’ve got Bucky.”

You barely register Steve tell you he’s on his way.

There’s too many of them. Too many to slow down on your own. There’s no time to wait for Steve.

You step out from behind the barricade and it seems Hydra is no longer interested in you as they attempt to hull Bucky into the back of the van.

He’s struggling against them, weakened by the electricity in his veins strong enough to bring down an elephant. It’s like he’s moving through water, resistance against his limbs and heavy weight on his body.

It’s when he meets your eyes from across the lot that the final splinter in your heart snaps and it shatters like glass. You see it on his lips, the pleading. The blue of his eyes glazes over; he’s scared – no, more than scared – he’s _petrified_ , and his whole body is trembling.

 _Now,_ he mouths, or maybe he’d screaming. You can’t tell. _Please, do it now._

You shake your head. Your hand is gripped so impossibly tight to the handle of your gun that your muscles ache from it. Tears blur your vision and you blink them away. They burn as they clear the grim from your cheeks and run to your jaw.

You try to tell him you _can’t_ , that your hand is shaking so badly you’d never be able to aim properly, not even sure your body would allow you to even aim a weapon at him to begin with, but he’s asking again, he’s begging.

He smiles for you, subtle and aching, but he nods, tries to tell you it’s okay. He tells you he loves you and time moves impossibly slow as harsh hands shove and pull at him and he does his best to fight back.

You’re running out of time and he knows it. He’s growing more desperate, pleading on an endless loop.

_Please. Baby, please._

_Do it now._

_I’m ready, honey. It’s okay._

_Shoot!_

Your finger moves to the trigger and it’s never felt as heavy as it does in this moment. You’re crying and it’s near impossible to see, but you watch as Bucky nods vigorously, trying to encourage you, urging the love of his life to spare him from what is about to happen.

_I love you._

_You can do this._

_It’ll be alright._

_Do it now, honey. Please._

But you can’t.

The gun falls to your side and Bucky stills almost instantly. 

You can’t quite read the rush of emotion on his face because there’s too much of it but you can still see the panic, the surge of unrelenting fear, the shock of betrayal in his eyes. He fights harder now, shouting out, though his voice is raspy and his body is falling weak.

Gunfire rings out next to you and you realize Steve is at your side. You don’t know how long he’s been there but as Hydra agents shove Bucky into the back of the cargo hold and out of sight, you fall to your knees and the look Steve sends you is one of disbelief.

He’s furious. He’s scared. He’s devastated.

It’s everything you feel.

Steve sprints off after the van as it accelerates down the street, but you know it’s useless. He can chase it for miles but he won’t catch up. His stamina will only last so long.

You’re alone for a while, out in the open lot, with bloodied bodies around you of the men you’d killed. Some laying in piles, red pools oozing out from under them.

You hardly notice Natasha sink down next to you silently, her hand slip over yours and squeezing just enough to ground you. You nearly break down completely when you spot Steve rushing back towards you from the end of the road.

Alone.

“What the hell was that?” he snaps, panting, hands shaking out of rage. You don’t respond because you simply don’t know how. He’s pacing now and Natasha warns him to calm down, but he can’t. “ _What happened, Y/n!?_ ”

“There were too many of them,” you try to explain, hating how shaken your voice sounds. “I tried to pick them off but they just kept coming back and–”

_“That’s not what I’m talking about!”_

Steve grits his teeth, voice wound tight in a coil. His hands clench and release at his side. He takes a deep breath, straightens his back and glances to the open road where Bucky was taken.

“I saw you aim the gun at him.”

You feel the jolt puncture through your chest before Natasha even has a chance to flinch. You grip at the fabric of your suit over your thighs and you try to remember the feel of Bucky’s hands, but you can’t. He’s already lost to you.

You look up to Steve and his face is red. He doesn’t understand. Just as Bucky said he wouldn’t.

“Steve, I–”

“What the fuck is the matter with you!” he shouts, throwing his arms in the air. He can’t stand still. “Why would you— _What were you thinking?_ ”

Natasha pulls herself to her feet, trying to calm Steve with a brush of her hand over his shoulder but he shoves her aside. He points a finger at you but his hand is shaking, so he wraps it into a fist. Curse words die on his tongue as Natasha pulls him a few feet away, speaking quietly to him, calmly, and you don’t try to listen in. The ringing in your ears is too loud for that.

“Why would she–” Steve starts again, but Natasha grabs his hands, trying to pull his attention.

“Steve, stop–” she urges but it’s no use.

“I thought she was gonna–”

“ _Calm down, Rogers._ ”

“She had a gun aimed at his head, Nat!” Steve shoves her away, running his hand over his mouth. He doesn’t know what to say. You almost killed his best friend. Steve doesn’t usually lose control like this. It’s a foreign feeling in his body and it doesn’t sit well. “ _Why_ would you–”

“He asked me to,” you confess, voice so soft you can barely hear it so when Steve silences, it surprises you. You look up at him, tears glossing over your eyes and you stand under shaky legs. “He’d rather die than be subjected to Hydra’s torture again, Steve. He didn’t think he could survive it a second time, but I—I couldn’t do it.”

“No– No, Bucky wouldn’t–” he turns to Nat, seeking answers he wouldn’t find. “He wouldn’t.”

You look to the ground. There is nothing that will make this easier.

“He would,” Natasha says. Steve won’t stop pacing and she sighs. “He knew what would happen if Hydra ever got ahold of him again. They’ll try to take his memories. They’ll torture him, throw him in that goddamn chair. They’d break him all over again.”

Steve nearly collapses against the outer wall of the building, unable to hold himself as the truth of your confession sinks in. The pieces were all there but Steve was too stubborn to see them. 

Bucky’s trauma hadn’t healed nearly as much as he thought. He just wanted his friend back. It was all he ever wanted. It blinded him from who Bucky was today, to his pain and suffering under the surface. 

Natasha grabs onto Steve’s hand, seeking out your own as well. She squeezes it lightly as it reminds you of Bucky. That, somehow, hurts worse.

“We’ll find him before they can put the triggers back in his head,” Nat says sternly, like she actually means it. But Natasha is a world class liar and you wonder if she believes it herself. She squeezes your hand again and your feel like your bones might snap. “We’ll bring him home.”

***

It takes nearly five weeks before you find him. 

Five weeks of hell you could have spared him of.

You wonder if he’ll even be himself when you see him, if he ever will be again. You wonder if he will forgive you.

Steve takes out nearly twelve men on his own before you have a chance to fire. The vengeance running through his veins is enough to keep him going. You follow behind on unsteady feet.

Steve has a kind of hope you never learned how to carry. He believes that finding Bucky will be enough, that bringing him home and rescuing him from this place is the same as saving him.

It’s not.

There’s more than just the imprisonment of these walls and the torture of vile men that he will need to be freed of. There’s something this place roots deep inside of him that breaks and tears at his core until he feels like he might cave in on himself. It was what he was afraid of. It was why he asked of you what he did.

“I’ve got a heat signature matching Bucky’s description in a cell four down from here,” Nat says from behind you, eyeing the small monitor in her hand. She points to the right side of the wall and Steve takes out a guard just as he turns the corner. He’s past the point of asking questions before he shoots.

The hall is empty by the time you reach the cell Nat is referring to. Steve’s hand juts out to the handle and he snaps off the locks with the brunt of his gun, but Natasha stills him quickly with a grasp on his shoulder. He pauses, looking to her through furrowed eyes and she nods towards you. A silent warning for him to stand down.

You don’t know how she learned to read you so well, but you’re grateful for it. Steve nods, lips pressed to a thin line and he steps aside, pressing his back to the wall by the door and standing guard. Natasha smiles softly at you, doing the same.

“We’ll be right here,” she tells you because you need the reminder.

The grip of the door is cold under the heat of your palms and the creak of the hinges is near deafening. You wince as you pull it open and it nearly slams closed behind you as you step inside from the weight of itself, but Steve shoves his boot between the frame to keep it propped open. None of you know what to expect and the Winter Soldier himself is not out of the realm of possibilities.

The moment you see him, it’s hard to stay steady on your feet. Your knees lock, legs feeling like putty and you lean against the wall for support.

Bucky sits in the far corner of the room, knees pulled up to his chest, stare facing the opposite wall. He doesn’t notice you as you stumble closer, trying to choke back the tears welling behind your eyes.

It’s like he’s catatonic. His arms wrapped around his knees, metal hand clamping onto flesh wrist where the skin is red and raw beneath.

You sink down by his side and still, he doesn’t move. Blue eyes locked on concrete over your shoulder and you swear it’s like he sees right through you. You lick at your lips, breath caught in your throat and you try to reach out to touch him but can’t seem to let your hands fall to his skin, to his muscle, to metal.

There are open wounds on his face; a large scar running from the center of his forehead to his left temple that is red and angry and likely infected from the swelling, and various cuts and scrapes and discoloration along his cheekbones. You can see jagged marks peeking out from under the thin layer of a ratted shirt they gave him after they must have stripped him of his stealth suit.

“Bucky,” you choke out, voice thick with tears and he doesn’t even flinch. You clench your jaw, biting down until you taste copper in your mouth. Sniffling back your own pain, you try again. “Sweetheart, look at me. We’re gonna bring you home. Steve and Nat are right outside the door, okay? You’re safe now, honey.”

He doesn’t so much as blink.

“God, what did they do to you?” you whisper. It’s not a question you expect him to answer.

Without thinking, your hand reaches out for him, hovering over his forearm for a moment before you touch him.

It happens in a split second.

Bucky’s head snaps to you, eyes wide, fearful, and he lunges at you, sending you onto your back as he climbs on top of you. His hand snakes around your throat before you can stop him and your nails dig into the concrete below. 

Bucky’s eyes hold no recognition as he stares down at you, still lost, still glazed, and you wonder if he thinks this is a dream or some kind of cruel game.

“B-Bucky,” you gasp, clawing at his hand but it’s solid and metal and it does no use.

Your legs squirm under him but he holds them down easily with his weight around your waist. He pushes down harder on your windpipe and your lungs burn like fire. Your head is pulsing, face red, and you swat up at him until you see a slight flicker of realization before he shoves it away.

He’s in there – _you know it_ – but he’s trapped; locked behind a trauma response or a dissociative state or _something_ but he’s there. It means you can get through to him.

From the corner of your eye, you spot Steve rushing into the room but you hold up your hand, warning him to stay back. He pauses, unsure, frantically eyeing Bucky as he squeezes at your throat, but you wave him back. He doesn’t leave the room but he stands still.

Vision starting to tunnel, you reach up to Bucky’s face. Your movements are no longer wild and panicked, and you brush the hair shielding his eyes behind his ear. That seems to startle him but he doesn’t shove you away. Your palm rests tenderly against his cheek and your thumb brushes delicately along the bruising along his jawline.

His eyes flicker to yours, confused, and they dart around him for a moment, breaths heavy in his chest. Your hand falls away from him as your body weakens and you can vaguely make out Steve’s footsteps as he sprints forward and suddenly the pressure on your throat releases and Bucky’s weight leaves you.

You suck in a harsh breath and it burns. 

It feels like shards of glass in your windpipe and you jolt upright. Vision restoring quickly though in blurred haze and black spots, you realize Steve hadn’t even made it halfway across the room. 

You turn sharply to find Bucky scrambling away from you, hands shaking violently, a world of emotion on his face he didn’t have just moments before; fear, devastation, guilt, relief.

Blue eyes meet yours and he breaks down almost instantly. His whole body racks with sobs and he tries to hide himself, shielding his face with his forearms as he curls up to the corner but you crawl towards him. You don’t try to speak because you know the coarseness of it will only make this worse, but when you gather him into your arms, he comes willingly.

His head rests against your shoulder, his right arm clinging around your waist and he holds his left as far away from you as he can manage. Tears are wet against your skin and he’s shaking as he cries, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” on an endless loop.

You kiss his forehead, hoping to calm him, to tell him it’s alright because your voice is useless and you don’t dare test it. Your breathing comes in through raspy gasps and Bucky flinches with every damaged inhale.

Steve waits from the center of the room, just watching, and his eyes are burning red, hand shaking at his side. You don’t know if Steve’s ever seen Bucky like this before, but it devastates him. It breaks him.

It breaks all of you.

***

Bucky isn’t himself for a long time.

It takes weeks before you can convince him to leave your room to eat something in the kitchen or go on a walk around the compound.

He’s lost weight and muscle mass from his time at Hydra and even more since then. He barely speaks and when he does, he can’t meet your eye. You try to wear sweaters and scarfs that cover the bruising on your neck, but he knows it’s there. His eyes burn with tears whenever he catches a glimpse of his handprint upon your skin.

It doesn’t help that Cho barred you from speaking for nearly an entire week and when you finally do again, it comes out broken and rough and Bucky flinches when you first say his name.

***

One month home and he still won’t touch you.

It’s not because you broke your promise to him and he tells you as often as you’ll hear it. It was too much, he says, he never should have put that on you, and yet, you can’t help but feel responsible for every scream in the middle of the night, every cry he tries to hide from you, every flinch away from your touch.

He won’t touch you because he’s terrified of losing control again, of attacking the woman he loves and he doesn’t know how to reconcile that.

So, he keeps to his side of the bed and withers his way out of your embrace after you’ve fallen asleep. It hurts him to do so, but he’s not sure he has another choice. He’s terrified he’ll snap again at any moment and you won’t be able to wake him up this time.

***

It’s two months before you see him smile again.

You’re sitting on the couch together, a generous space between your bodies you do not challenge and Sam trips over the edge of the table, spilling his bowl of popcorn high into the air before it lands in sweeps along the floor and over his back. Tony is practically in tears and you’re biting your lip for Sam’s sake, though you can’t help the grin aching in your cheeks.

You look over to Bucky and the corner of his lip twinges. It’s subtle and it fades almost instantly but it was there. He meets your eye for a moment and he pushes out another for you. It’s tight and forced but he’s trying.

You smile back and remind yourself not to reach for his hand.

***

Bucky never tells you, or anyone, what happened in his five weeks held by Hydra. He attempts to ease your conscious by telling you they never attempted the chair again or the trigger words, but somehow that hurts more. It leaves you wondering what else could have happened to hurt him like this, what could possibly be _worse_.

Fury grants your request for leave while Bucky recovers and you spend most of your days trying to peel away the darkness he’s holding onto. It’s thick and heavy and clinging onto him for dear life but slowly, inch by inch, shadow by shadow, it releases him.

When enough light can peer through, he starts to let you touch him again. It’s nearly three months after he came home.

You give him warning each time, letting his eyes watch as your hand comes to him and lands upon his skin. He needs the time to prepare for it. It takes him a moment to ease into it and remind himself that your touch is wanted, craved even, and he relaxes after a moment and asks for more.

It starts out with holding his hand and moves to playing with his hair. He prefers behind the one to touch you. He likes when you let him run his fingers in loose patterns over your back. It’s something he always did before, though that feels like a lifetime ago to him.

***

Eventually, he asks if you’ll shower with him.

It’s a big step, one that surprises you when he asks but you agree without hesitation.

“I want to get better,” he says timidly, standing in the bathroom fully clothed in three day old pajamas. He struggles to meet your eye but when he does, the blue is aching with shame. “I know you won’t hurt me but I… I can’t explain it. I don’t know why this is so hard for me.”

“It’s okay,” you remind him, careful not to step forward and invade his space. “You just tell me what you need, alright? Tell me if it’s too much.”

He nods and his hands play with the ends of his shirt. He hasn’t been bare before you since he was taken.

“I can go first, if you want?” you offer, gesturing to your clothes and he nods, thankful.

He’s seen you naked before. You’d been together for a few years before he was taken but something about this feels different. It feels new, almost like the first time.

The air is cold against your skin as you pull the cotton t-shirt over your head and let it slip to the floor. Your nipples pebble against the chill and you notice Bucky’s eyes drawn to your chest. It doesn’t embarrass you. You like the way he watches you and it reminds you of the days before he was taken.

You smile at him, nodding for his turn.

Bucky takes a deep breath and tugs his metal arm through the sleeves of his shirt before pulling the rest over his head and letting it fall down his right arm. You realize then why he kept himself from you for so long.

A gasp in your throat, hand darting up to cover your lips, your eyes fall upon dozens of faded scars lining his chest and stomach. You imagine there’s more on his back, but it’s not the scars themselves that scare you. It’s the patterns carved against him. Deliberate and meaningful.

They spell out words.

_Monster_

_Hydra_

_Soldier_

_Asset_

_Killer_

Some in English, some in Russian you don’t understand and you bite down hard on your cheek to keep from crying. _This isn’t about you,_ you tell yourself in an attempt to will your tears away, and you lower your hands to your sides.

“I wanted to tell you,” he mumbles, eyes on the floor.

“It’s okay, honey,” you say and you feel like a broken record, but you do mean it.

You take your pants off next, then your underwear, and Bucky follows suit. Neither of you are shy about your staring because despite the pain and the trauma, you miss each other like nothing else.

Bucky steps aside and you turn on the water, feeling for the temperature for a moment until it’s at the warmth you usually prefer and you ask Bucky to test it before he steps in. He does so and nods to you. He steps in behind the curtain and you give him a moment, trying to center yourself before you follow.

“Y/n?” he calls nervously, like he’s afraid you’ll leave if he doesn’t have eyes on you.

“Right here,” you tell him and you push down the tightness in your chest to step in behind him.

The steam is warm against your skin despite Bucky blocking the stream of the water, but you don’t mind. The relief on his face, the relaxation evident in his muscles is enough for you.

You spend the next ten minutes washing his body. You tell him exactly what you’re doing before you do it and where you’re trailing the gentle motions of the cloth before you get there. His eyes are closed the whole time, a sign that his trust is building again, and you wonder as you brush over the faded scars along his back, over the word ‘devil’ carved into his shoulder blade, if Tony could find a way to remove them.

You move onto washing his hair and he has to bend down a little for you, but it makes him smile. He sighs as your fingers work the shampoo through his hair and he turns to face you as he rinses it into the water.

He’s watching you now as you condition his hair, just studying the way you purse your lips as you work, noticing the line in your forehead as you concentrate. He’s reminded of the small things, the good things, and he lets go of another shard of darkness embedded in his chest.

He lets the water rinse through his hair, leaning back into the stream of it. When he’s done, you move to reach around him to turn off the water, but his hand gently lands on your wrist to stop you.

“I could…” he paused, licking at his lips, “I could I wash you, too? If you… um… if you want?”

He’s never been so nervous with you before, so unsure of your love for him, your eagerness to have his hands on your body. He doubts whether you want him, whether you’d even allow him to touch you. The bruising faded from your neck and his eyes still flicker there.

“I would really like that,” you say, as soft as you can manage and you don’t miss his sigh of relief.

You cherish every moment of his hands upon your body, in your hair, on your scalp. Calloused fingers running along with soapy residue along your skin, over your curves. You try not to focus too hard when he brushes over your breasts. He lets you clean yourself between the legs as he steps back with a pink blush in his cheeks.

You don’t mind. Having him this close is enough. He runs the water over your shoulders, soothing away the suds, and you close your eyes in the feeling. It’s been so long since he’s touched you and it’s like a reprieve. It’s heaven. It’s always heaven when it’s with him.

When he’s done, he holds you under the water with him and it’s the closest you’ve been since he’d been back. Chest to chest. Flesh to flesh.

When you feel his length harden between you, he clears his throat awkwardly, and steps away from you. He’s embarrassed.

“Bucky,” you croon sweetly, gingerly running your hand down his arm until you intertwine your fingers. He looks over to you, eyes drifting down to your chest, and he bites his lip. “Bucky, it’s alright. Let me help you feel good.”

He’s unsure, but he’s hard now and he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from your breasts.

“Let me do this for you, honey,” you ask again and his cock twitches. He bites down hard on his lip and his right hand carefully reach out to set on your hip, just feeling, exploring.

It takes a moment, but he nods, almost pleading. He steps aside so he’s facing the wall, making room for you under the water so you don’t catch a chill.

You watch his face the whole time, reminding him you’ll stop the second he asks you to as your hand trails along his thigh before you wrap your fingers around his cock. He hisses at the sensation, flinching at the touch because it’s been _so long_ and you’re almost certain he hasn’t even touched himself since he’s been home.

He asks you to keep going and you do. It doesn’t take long until he’s wobbling on shaking legs, panting and thrusting into your fist. You sooth your free hand against his back, running in gentle strokes up and down his spine as you work him over. His fingers press so deep into your hip you’re sure it’ll leave marks, but you don’t mind at all.

He comes suddenly with a gasp, his release coating the wall and he follows your pumps with lazy thrusts as his cock twitches in your hand. It’s quicker than usual and you can see the pink burning in his ears, but you kiss at his shoulder, gently running your hand along his shaft until he’s given all he can.

He rests his forehead to the wall, catching his breath and you gingerly pull your hand away, rinsing it off in the water as his cum trails down to the drain.

Bucky doesn’t say anything after that but after you step out of the shower together and dry your bodies, he lets you hold him for the first time in months under the smooth surface of clean sheets. You kiss at his hairline and his cheek bones and he sighs contently, curling closer to you with every press of your lips.

He’s still in your arms by morning.

***

“You should leave me,” he says a few weeks later and it tears your heart in two.

He’s lying on his side, metal arm tucked under the pillow as he faces you and there’s tears wet on his cheeks. It’s nearly three in the morning and he woke up screaming for the eighth night in a row. He’s noticed the dark circles under your eyes you’ve gained like permeant stains upon your skin. He sees the drain it takes from you to care for him and he hates himself for it.

But he’s selfish. He loves you too much to walk away. He’s withering you dry and he still wants more. He needs you to be the one to do it, to leave him, because he simply can’t.

“Please,” he cries, shivering and you tuck yourself tighter to his chest, unwilling to let go. “I can’t– I can’t be the one to do it.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you tell him, sternly, like it’s a fact and it _is._

“I’m a mess, Y/n. I’m falling apart and I’m bringing you down with me.”

You don’t care, and you tell him so.

He’s been getting better. He doesn’t notice his progress because it’s clouded in his nightmares and hyper vigilance and paranoia, but it’s there. You try to remind him, show him, as often as you can that any step forward counts as progress, no matter how small, no matter how many steps back. He’s still gaining.

You run your fingers gently along his jawline. The bruising once upon his face long healed and the scar his forehead only a faded memory. Even the jarring words across his chest are nearly gone thanks to Tony’s laser tech. It would need a few more treatments but they’d vanish completely.

He looks like your Bucky again.

“You’ve got me, baby. Nothing will ever take me from you, do you understand? I’m yours,” you say and he exhales a breath that releases the tension in his muscles. He pulls you against him, his hand running along your back.

“I love you,” he murmurs into your hair because he doesn’t know what else to say to express the gratitude, the love, the relief inside him, so he settles on the truth.

He will always find ways to convince himself he’s not worthy, that you’re better off without him, that his love for you will never be enough. It’s part of the trauma etched into his DNA, but he’s learning to push those thoughts aside.

It gets easier with your help and soon, when you tell him he’s safe, when you tell him you love him, when you tell him you’ll be by his side as long as he lets you, he starts to believe you.

***

The first time you make love again, Bucky thinks he might actually survive all that’s happened to him.

He’s learned to accept touch again, learned to give it and crave the feeling of you wrapped in his arms. It’s like heaven and it ignites in his chest, forcing more of the light to shove away the darkness still embedded inside him.

He wants this, and he tells you over and over again because you’re terrified to push him too far; and he wants to do this for you as much as himself. He wants to touch you in places that make your lips part in a breathless gasp, that get your eyes fluttering shut, that have your hands clenching in the sheets and in his hair. He wants to bring you something other than pain and heartache.

He wants to bring you pleasure.

Bucky’s body remembers yours well, so he knows how to touch you to draw arousal between your legs. You squirm under him and he chuckles for the first time in a while. It’s a sound so sweet you have to stop the tears from welling in your eyes, though it’s long forgotten as he sinks two fingers inside you with ease.

You grip onto the flesh of his right shoulder, nails digging into his skin as he pumps his fingers, curling right at the spot that makes you whimper and latch onto him tighter. You try and utter his name but it falls on your tongue. You can’t think much of anything with his hands on you like that.

“That’s my girl,” he says, drawing shivers up your spine, “come apart for me, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

He slides in a third finger and before you can adjust, he’s rubbing at your clit with the heal of his palm in rushed circles. You can hear the wetness around his fingers as he picks up in pace, and soon you’re clenching around him, gasping, panting, on the edge and it could be enough to send you over, but you want _him_.

“Need you,” you tell him, pushing his hand away and he looks up to you, confused. Pulling his face down to yours, you kiss his lips, something you’ll never take for granted again. You smile as he pulls away. “Please, baby. I need you. _All of you._ ”

He’s hesitant at first, unsure, because he only cares about making you feel good right now after all he’s put you through, but when he follows your eyes down to his cock, he finds that it’s standing painfully hard against him and dripping in precum. He’s aching for you, desperate to be buried deep inside, and he’s not sure he can deny you.

Bucky doesn’t want to hold back anymore, he decides, as your fingers comb gently through his hair. He doesn’t want to hide from the woman he loves.

He lines himself with your entrance and you clench around nothing, just at the feeling of his tip brushing against your folds enough to draw such a sensation. He shudders above you and when his eyes meet yours again, they’re filled with a kind of love, a longing that you knew in him before he was taken from you.

He remembers fucking you, leaving marks and driving you into the mattress with quick and harsh thrusts but he doesn’t want to do that tonight. He wants to this to be slow. He wants to feel every moment, every clench, every gasp he can elicit from your lips. He wants to know all of it.

He wants to memorize you all over again.

When he sinks into you, the stretch is like the first time.

He doesn’t last nearly as long, but you don’t mind. It only takes a few minutes before you’re clenching around him, clinging onto his shoulders as you come. There’re tears in his eyes when he releases into you and he rolls his hips lazily to yours, stretching out the feeling as long as either of you can manage.

He falls down on your body and tucks his face to the crook of your neck. The shaking of his shoulders startles you at first and you pull his head back to find him crying, eyes red and lips trembling. Your heart lurches because you think you’ve pushed him to do something he wasn’t ready for, but instead, he smiles, leaning in to kiss you chastely.

“There was a time I never thought I’d see you again,” he sighs, pressing kisses to your cheekbones, to your nose, to your forehead, “but you’re here. I’m here. I didn’t think I’d ever come home to you and here you are. My girl.”

He wipes at the tears slipping past your eyes before you can realize you’re crying. He never once talked about his time held in Hydra’s captivity since he’s been home. He avoids it narrowly at every chance, pushes out a smile and finds a way to dodge the subject. He’s handling it, he tells you, and you only believe him half of the time, but something feels different tonight.

The way he’s looking at you, you can see the light behind the blue in his eyes. It’s like a faded navy hanging above a sunset, somewhere where the stars are collecting, peppering amongst the darkness, and shadows are casting the sun into the night. He’s beautiful.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, not sure what else to say.

“It’s not your fault, baby,” he says and there’s truth in his voice, sincerity. “I’m sorry I asked of you what I did. It wasn’t right, to put all that on you, and… hell… if you’d gone through with it like I asked, I would’ve deprived myself of this. Of being with you, _here._ Of surviving again.”

He kissed your forehead, pulling you impossibly close against him. He’s still inside you and though you can feel him soften, it’s the fullness of his body connected to yours that relieves you, that reminds you that he’s here with you.

“Don’t ask that of me again,” you beg, curling into him. “Don’t ask me to lose you like that. I won’t do it. I need you here with me, okay? I need you to be here.”

“I know, baby. Never again, I promise.”

You’re home in his arms and he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t flinch. He’s content, safe, and he nestles his face into the crook of your neck, breathing in the smell of you he’d lost when he was gone all those weeks. He’s memorizing you again, learning to recommit every piece of you to memory. It was all that kept him alive when he was gone.

It’s something he never had when he was captured in the war and after the fall. He never had something to hold on for, to cling to, to keep his mind focused on anything outside of the unrelenting torture.

So, he savors the feel of your body wrapped around his, the smell of your hair, the soft touches of your fingers as you run them in gentle patterns along his back, the hum of your voice; it’s all his saving grace, every piece of you.

He knows he’s a mess. He fully realizes how broken he is and he’s crumbling at the seams, especially after these last few months, but you never once turn him away, never even consider that he is as irredeemable as he thinks he is.

It’s the reason he thinks he might just be alright.

One day.

Maybe not today, because there’s still pieces of darkness clouding around him, but he’s able to see through the fog of it again. It’s something, and your sweet voice echoes in his ear, reminding him it’s the process that counts, no matter how small the steps.


End file.
